Ok APU,Time too send in your pics for the next POTM contest... Please email me at metal.maniac@live.com or please PM myself ...Depending on how many pics we get and the variety of species we will have several categories...Only 1 pic per member per species so you can send in 1 fish 1 cat 1 lizard just not 2 fish 2 cat...you get the idea!!...So send em in and lets make this a BIG ONE!!!... Cheers!!!...Metal Maniac and the APU Staff

Okay so this bird isn’t so new, I got him about 4 months ago. I tried a lot of stuff to make him comfortable and friendly, but have always been so scared of me, won’t come out of his cage unless I leave it open and walk away for like a half an hour. Is there anything I can do? Or have I had him too long?

PrettyOrchid wrote:Okay so this bird isn’t so new, I got him about 4 months ago. I tried a lot of stuff to make him comfortable and friendly, but have always been so scared of me, won’t come out of his cage unless I leave it open and walk away for like a half an hour. Is there anything I can do? Or have I had him too long?

You need to habituate it to you. This means spending as much time as you can with it. But the very first thing you have to to is to teach it to "step up." This will make the bird comfortable with you and give you some degree of control over the bird, especially when it is on the ground. Once you achieve the "step up" things should go pretty well.

Birds take a long time to warm up to people in some cases, especially when they have seen more than one owner. So don't be discouraged. I have a Fischer's Love Bird and it took a good year to get an idea of how he worked. In fact, I could not reach into the cage to get him until one or two years after getting him. He wanted to come out of the cage on his terms and step up onto my shoulder. So that is how I did things until he like the finger better. The main thing is to be consistent in how you care for them.

The best thing you can do to make a bird friendly with you is to keep its food on your hand and try to feed it when it’s inside the cage. The next thing is you should have bought him when he was too small and spent more time with him.

Some birds act totally different in a cage compared to out of cage. I would also suggest clipping wings not because of aggression but for safety reasons & to get it to warm up to you faster. Be consistent & spend a lot of time with it, even if its in cage next to you while reading or watching TV. Be calm n move slow. Give treats by hand n don't stare at it. After he becomes friendly I'd let wings grow back out.